Tainted

by Ross Pennie

  Zol set his elbows on the countertop and rubbed his cheeks with his palms. Oh, God. How many millions of prions had he eaten in Krooner’s Viennese sausages? Max, too. Jesus. The thought of Max staring into oblivion, moaning, gob drooling from his mouth . . . Zol shuddered. What if he lost his marbles before Max started losing his? He couldn’t let Max watch while he turned into a goddamn vegetable. Would he even know CJD had hit his brain? Would he know he was losing his memory? Or would he keep forgetting he had a problem? His mum and dad would have to move in, look after both of them. What if they got sick, too? Had he ever served them those sausages? “Oh my God,” he said, “everyone who’s eaten Krooner’s products is going to get CJD. Max, me, and half of Hamilton.”

  “That’s what Ken said. He’s eaten a tonne of Lanny’s pies and sausages.”

  “That’s no goddamn comfort.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  Zol lifted his head. “What do you mean?”

  “There’ve been only seven cases so far —”

  “Plus an eighth in the hospital that Natasha’s cousin seems to know about.”

  Hamish’s eyebrows went up. “Okay, maybe eight. But the woman behind the counter at I and W Meats said Krooner’s stuff flies off the shelves. With sales that good there should be hundreds of cases.”

  “Wonderful. And we’re all in the early stages, waiting for the rot to set in.”

  Hamish folded his hands and relaxed his face. He looked like a different person, one who’d never known an anxious moment in his life. “No, Zol, you’re fine. And you’re going to stay that way. I’m sure of it.” His opinion came across as a brilliant diagnosis delivered by an expert — measured, sure-footed, and surprisingly comforting. “There have to be many other factors at play,” he said. He caught Zol’s gaze and wouldn’t let go. “The British experience is that almost everyone in the country has ingested prions, but only a tiny group has come down with CJD. Genetic susceptibility seems to be crucial.” He unfolded his hands and tapped his chin with his finger. “But I don’t think it can be the only factor.”

  Zol clutched at Hamish’s words like a drowning man gripping a life buoy: only a tiny group has come down with CJD.

  “I’m thinking,” Hamish said, his voice still mellow, “there has to be something else affecting the brain. Something working simultaneously with the prions.” He picked up his glass and stared into it as though it might contain the answer. “Could be a neurotropic virus, like West Nile. Or an enterovirus, like Coxsackie.” He drew a fingertip through the puddle of condensation left by the wineglass. “Or,” he said, his face brightening, “maybe a neurotoxin we haven’t considered — something in the food supply. Ciguatera contaminating a salmon farm? Mussels poisoned with domoic acid?”

  Zol shook his head. He’d have been the first to know if the health unit had been notified of any seafood shipments poisoned by toxins or algal blooms. He hauled his voice through the sand in his throat, wondering if he’d been handed an answer to his prayers. “What about Extendo-Tox? All seven cases received it.”

  Hamish grabbed the counter. His pupils dilated so completely that his eyes turned from baby blue to almost black. “What? Why didn’t you tell me . . .” His face clouded. His feet shifted. He studied his toes. The moment passed, and he shrugged as if to show that last week’s estrangement no longer mattered. When he looked up, his eyes were shining. “That’s amazing!”

  “Banbury doesn’t think so.”

  “All seven cases linked to the same neurotoxin? It has to be important.” Hamish pointed behind Zol’s shoulder and looked alarmed. “Look! Is that pot on fire?”

  “Oh, the spaghetti,” Zol said, jumping off his stool and dashing to the smoking pot. He turned off the gas and studied the pasta. The noodles had boiled dry, and half of them were stuck to the bottom of the pan. Those that weren’t charred wouldn’t exactly be al dente, but they’d do. He hit the buttons on the microwave where the tomato sauce was waiting. Zol didn’t feel like eating, but Hamish looked hungry, so he lifted two plates from the cupboard and took Ermalinda’s coleslaw from the fridge.

  Hamish rubbed at his flat-top. “This Extendo-Tox connection. It has to be our breakthrough. There’s no way around it, Zol.”

  Zol pressed his fingers into the cramp in his neck. He wished he could share Hamish’s enthusiasm. “Tell me again — what makes you think there must be other factors besides Krooner’s prions causing our epidemic?”

  “We’ve got a few things that don’t fit with other reports of human CJD.” He started counting on his fingers. “A focused cluster, a short incubation period, a new microscopic arrangement of the plaques in the brain. It looks like something is speeding up the prions. Making them go crazy. Something that works on the nervous system. A virus or a neurotoxin.”

  “Then Extendo-Tox does make sense?”

  “Of course. Especially if it’s linked to every victim.”

  “But,” said Zol, “Banbury looked for Extendo-Tox in each one of those brains. Spent all weekend at it. No Extendo-Tox in any of them.”

  Hamish tapped his foot against the leg of his stool. He examined his fingernails, then looked up and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What assay did he use?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Do you know what parts of those brains he examined?”

  Zol spooned tomato sauce onto two plates of dried-out noodles. “He didn’t say. Just that there was no trace of Extendo-Tox in any of the CJD plaques.”

  Hamish eyed the supper and sat at the table. “Maybe he missed it,” he said, tucking a serviette into his collar. “He couldn’t have looked in the right place.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  Hamish swirled a forkful of spaghetti onto his spoon. “The connection is just too good to pass up,” he said, attacking his pasta with gusto. After several mouthfuls he held up his fork. “If the Extendo-Tox is an essential cofactor — but not a source of prions — it might be working at a site other than the actual CJD plaques.”

  Zol toyed with his dinner. He managed a little of the coleslaw, then put down his fork. “We’re still not positive about the source of the prions.”

  Hamish’s eyes shone bright and clear. “We will be soon. I’ve got a guy at the University of Guelph working on Krooner’s samples. He’s with the Food Safety Network. Can concentrate prions a thousand times on an RNA filter column and detect them with Western blot.”

  “How did you get hold of him?”

  “Had a long chat with a helpful guy on Friday, when I drove the specimens up to Guelph.” He turned his fork through the last of his pasta. “And just for the record,” he added, “cats do get CJD — feline transmissible encephalopathy.”

  “Sorry. I should have known . . .”

  “Listen,” said Hamish, adjusting the alignment of his fork and spoon across his empty plate, “Julian Banbury was one of Extendo-Tox’s key developers. He wrote the papers pivotal to confirming its safety. Without him, Extendo-Tox would never have been licensed.”

  “Watching it rocket to success must have been an unbelievable high for him.”

  Hamish nodded. “And if it ever takes a tumble, he’ll be devastated.” He yanked at his serviette and wiped his fingers. “So it’s going to be up to us to shoot it down.”

  “Come in and close the door,” Zol said to Natasha early the next morning as she strode into his office in response to his call. “Here,” he said, clearing a spot on his desk, “you better put down your coffee.”

  Her face filled with alarm. “Dr. Zol. What’s wrong?”

  It had taken Zol ages to fall asleep last night. He’d called Douglas Matheson while Hamish was clearing the dishes and discovered that Delia Smart loved the Melton Mowbray pies with the letter K on the crust. After that, his mind had raced through images of Max flopped in his bed, his eyes sightless, his hands clenching a lifeless game gadget, the batteries long dead. At breakfast things hadn’t seemed quite so bad as long as he forced himself t
o focus on Hamish’s promise: no one could get CJD without exposure to a cofactor such as West Nile or Extendo-Tox.

  He tried to force a smile for Natasha, but it wouldn’t come. “There’ve been some significant developments,” he said.

  “With the CJD? That’s great.”

  “Except I’m officially off the case.” Zol’s gaze dropped to the familiar clutter on his desktop. “Strict orders from Dr. Trinnock. After my fiasco on Canada AM.”

  Natasha’s mouth gaped. The alarm in her eyes quickly morphed into anger. “That’s completely unfair. You can’t be off the case. Who else is —”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not giving up. But I do have to keep a low profile.” He gestured toward a chair. “Have a seat.” He paused and laced his hands together. “Tell me, do you ever eat pork pies or sausages?”

  “No. We’re vegetarian. Well, at least most of my family is. Sometimes I eat chicken.”

  “Then you can be objective.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Hamish Wakefield came to my place last night.” Seeing her eyebrows twitch, he quickly added, “Yes, we’re working together again.”

  “That’s good news. I really like Dr. Wakefield. Underneath all those brains is a caring heart.”

  “You took biology, didn’t you?”

  “My major.”

  “Then you’re familiar with the genus Mustela?”

  “Um . . . let’s see . . .” She gazed at the far corner of the ceiling for a moment, pondered, then looked at Zol. “Ferrets, isn’t it?”

  He raised his eyebrows and held her gaze. The only way to get this out would be with a bit of drama. He waved his hands in a flourish. “The latest thing in gourmet meat pies and sausages.”

  “What?” She twisted her mouth. “Dr. Zol, that’s disgusting. No one eats ferret.”

  “Not ferret. But it seems that some of us, Max and me included, have been indulging in a soupçon of . . . of mink.”

  Natasha clamped a hand over her lips. As Zol told her the story she sat stock-still, bracing herself with her arm against the desk. Her eyes grew larger by the second.

  “And Hamish’s contact in Guelph,” Zol said, glad to be wrapping up the story, “will be able to give us a report about the prions sometime this week.” He tucked his hands under his thighs and stared through the window. When he’d entered public health he’d never imagined anything like this would hit so close to home.

  Natasha’s eyes darkened. “This means hundreds will be affected.”

  He replied with his mantra, the notion that was keeping him focused, holding him together. “Hamish said not. He said mink prions require a cofactor to cause disease in humans.”

  “And that cofactor could be Extendo-Tox?”

  “Exactly. We have to hope that only a limited number of people ate Krooner’s products and received Extendo-Tox.”

  “But it still could be hundreds,” said Natasha, pulling at the dark curls at the nape of her neck. “The same clientele that can afford Extendo-Tox also shops at Four Corners, where the prices are . . . well, you know.” Her fingers hovered over her coffee mug, but she didn’t seem game to take a sip. “So,” she asked quietly, “now what?”

  “We have to clear Krooner’s stuff from the shelves of Four Corners and I and W. And from anywhere else he’s been flogging it.”

  “We’ll need a press release — radio, TV, and the Spectator. Everyone who has Krooner products will have to return them to the point of purchase.”

  “And not flush them down the toilet or feed them to their pets.”

  “Are we going to give a reason for the recall?” she asked.

  Zol mulled that one. “We’ll have to say something. It has to be the truth but we can’t mention prions or CJD. I’m not pulling a Wyatt Burr and going off half-cocked about this. Besides, I’m still off the case.”

  “Shouldn’t we notify the Ministry and the food inspection agency?”

  “Technically, yes. But as far as the prions go, we’re still only working on a hunch. And Trinnock will have a fit if I connect Krooner’s sausages with CJD. I want to hear from the prion lab before we tell anyone what we’ve discovered. We can’t go contradicting the party line with an incomplete case. We’d lose the public’s confidence and there’d be chaos. And — I’d get fired.”

  “Oh, Dr. Zol, please don’t say that.”

  “Our line will be that we’re recalling Krooner’s products because they haven’t been properly inspected.”

  “The simple truth. Perfect.” She shifted in her chair and crossed her ankles. “So, you’ll contact the media?”

  “After yesterday’s horse feathers? No way.”

  She smiled briefly, then looked anxious again. Her neck and shoulders stiffened. “Dr. Trinnock, then?”

  “Yeah. And we can’t let him drag his heels. A few days from now we’ll be announcing the prion results and revealing the full details of Krooner’s mink-meat adulteration. The country’s going to go ballistic. And the press will have a heyday scrutinizing our every move with their retrospectoscope.”

  “And if Dr. Trinnock says no to the recall and the press release?”

  “He can’t. He’ll want to stick by Wyatt Burr and his gelatin, but he can’t stop us recalling pork products that Guelph University’s Food Safety Network has determined are laced with mink meat. So as long as we don’t mention anything about prions, Trinnock will be okay with it.”

  “And who’s going to slap that big red Failed Inspection notice on the Krooner premises?”

  “That’ll have to be me.” Zol fished the loonie from his pocket. He wondered whether it would be safe to go up to Krooner’s alone. No. Anyone passing dog food off as gourmet pies and sausages wasn’t playing with a full deck. And being a farmer, Krooner would have a gun.

  He’d talk to Colleen. She knew how to handle the Krooners of this world.

  CHAPTER 26

  “I can only give you a few minutes,” Julian Banbury said, opening his laboratory door to Hamish’s knock later that morning.

  Hamish had already run the Saab through the car wash, answered five emails, and signed off a dozen of the consultation letters he’d dictated the previous week. Correcting the letters had taken longer than he’d anticipated, and he hadn’t seen Ned Krooner yet this morning. He planned to drop by Ned’s room as soon as he’d finished this meeting with Banbury. With luck, Lanny wouldn’t arrive until after the start of visiting hours this afternoon, and Hamish wouldn’t have to face him.

  Hamish’s stomach constricted at the thought of meeting Lanny face to face. He wouldn’t confront the snarly butcher over his sausages, but one look into Hamish’s eyes and Lanny would know something was up. And there was no knowing what a guy like him might do.

  Banbury motioned for Hamish to come in. “I don’t know what more I can tell you,” he said, his tongue darting back and forth across his crooked yellow teeth. “As I explained to Dr. Szabo, there’s no botulinum toxin in any of those brains. Not in any form whatsoever.”

  Hamish cast his eyes around the laboratory. The cramped space churned with clutter. Glassware overflowed in the grimy sink. The curtains hung wrinkled and stained, as though Banbury had been drying his hands on them. How, Hamish wondered, could credible science emerge from such chaos? He crossed his arms tightly against his chest. “What sort of assay did you use?”

  “I started with an immunoassay. It uses a polyvalent serum that targets all seven toxin serotypes, A through G.”

  “And you found no trace of toxin.”

  Banbury shook his head. “I was afraid your friend Szabo might be onto something with his folded Extendo-Tox theory.” He dabbed his handkerchief at the specks of foam collecting at the sides of his mouth. “But it turned out to be science fiction.” His tongue quivered. “Extendo-Tox can’t possibly fold itself into a prion. Immunohistochemistry revealed nothing resembling botulinum toxin — folded or otherwise — in any of the amygdalas where the tulip-shaped plaques of CJD were concentrate
d.”

  “And you tested the brains specifically for Extendo-Tox?”

  Banbury cleared his throat and looked away. “No. Extendo-Tox antiserum is too hard to come by. But it shouldn’t matter. The polyvalent serum should detect Extendo-Tox just fine.”

  “Are you sure about that?” How sure could Banbury be about anything that came out of this shambles?

  Banbury tightened his fists. His exophthalmic eyes strained in their sockets. “Look, young man. I’ve been researching neurochemistry for three decades. Since you were in diapers. I do know what I’m talking about.”

  Hamish ran both hands across the bristles of his flat-top, then pushed his fingers into the tightness at the back of his neck. He hated that age-equals-superiority bull. “Yes . . . of course you do, Dr. Banbury,” he said, trying to sound contrite but knowing he was probably failing. “But I can’t help wondering . . .” He scanned the room, but his eyes couldn’t find anywhere to rest that was less chaotic than Banbury’s face. “Is it possible to look for Extendo-Tox using a more sensitive method?”

  “Well, there is a test designed to detect Extendo-Tox specifically. And it is particularly sensitive.” Banbury wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and stuffed it into his shirt cuff. “I developed it myself, in point of fact.”

  “Really?”

  Banbury smiled. “I used it to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that Extendo-Tox doesn’t bind to any tissue or receptors outside the peripheral nervous system. The developers didn’t want it causing cardiac arrest when it was only supposed to paralyse simple muscle fibres.”

  “I understand.”

  “But I no longer have any of the test reagents. I returned them to the company when I finished the project. That is, after we assured ourselves of Extendo-Tox’s safety.”

  “But you can get the reagents again, right? After all . . .”

  Banbury stared through the window where a construction crane was lifting a girder toward the top of the hospital’s new tower. “Not without a tremendous amount of paperwork.” His shoulders sagged. “In point of fact, they’d insist on knowing exactly what I wanted it for and I’d have to sign a new confidentiality agreement that might keep the results buried for months, perhaps a couple of years if their lawyers were to get involved.” He cleared his throat with a phlegmy cough. “Something tells me you don’t want that.”